Below is a transcript of our conversation with Dr. Mark Cwiek and Ferdousi Zaman:
David Nicholas:
I'm David Nicholas and this is central focus, a weekly look at research activity and innovative work from Central Michigan University students and faculty. When you visit your doctor's office, gone are the days of the huge cabinets with paper files for every patient. We're in the era of electronic health records, or EHR. Professor Mark Zwick, Health Administration from the Herbert H. And Grace Dow College of Health Professions wrote an award-winning paper on the Impact, good and bad of EHR. He worked with Verducci Zaman from Bangladesh. She is now working in New York. Dr. Zwick pulled up a chair to tell me more.
Mark Cwiek:
Especially since COVID 2, the vast majority of doctors now have telehealth encounters, let alone also using electronic health records extensively. The federal government since 2009, with the High Tech Act, really incentivized. Systems, doctors, hospitals, etcetera. To make the conversion over to the electronic forms.
DN:
Did the circumstances of the pandemic from your perspective alter the focus of the research and the paper? Now that has come out of the findings?
MC:
Certainly COVID has had a huge impact on everything related to healthcare these days and there is some really interesting research that's occurring related to. David and to the treatment of the ability for physicians to be able to work with patients, you know, not being in the same building and the big thing too is that the compensation is there now a lot more liberally than it has been in the past, the federal government. Really opened that up during the time of the pandemic.
DN:
Positives and negatives or as the title illustrates wonders and worries. Ferdousi, a question then first for you as you approached. Getting into this research, was it more the wonders or the worries that attracted you in terms of how you wanted to focus your study?
Ferdousi Zaman:
The nature I am from Bangladesh. So, UHRS has a lot of cost for the hospital and clinic. Sometimes the hospital clinic in our country can't afford that.
DN:
Do either of you or have you talked about the possibilities of how you will follow up on the research findings that you've? Publish.
MC:
In the paper, we do talk about I we present the various ideas for system improvements and then actually some reasons for cautious optimism. The one of the big problems that we have today is that there is a relatively high amount of physician burnout or clinician burnout. And low clinician satisfaction with the use of. Of electronic health records, if you can imagine that the doctor in the exam room with the patient and the doctor being compelled to have the eyes on the screen as opposed to, you know, talking directly to the patient and keeping a steady eye contact and more and more. The expectations are that the, you know, the physicians keep up, there's a certain volume expectation. So, there's not a heck of a lot of time with individual encounters and then. And the requirements of the doctors are really very extensive to complete these records. Oftentimes the doctors continue at night at home. They say it's about an hour and a half on average. They call it pajama time too of to make sure that the records are complete for. Today, and they're also responding to various electronic communications, the inbox seems to be always full. It's pretty challenging to be a clinician.
DN:
These days, this research and the paper resulting from that electronic health records the wonders and the worries, and this we note. Also, was the winner of best paper at the 24th Annual Global Business and Technology Association. Conference Professor Mark Zwick from the Herbert H and Grace Dao College of Health Professions at Central Michigan University and now CMU graduate and working in New York City. International student Verducci Zaman. Thank you both very much for taking the time to talk with us. We do appreciate you joining. Us.
MC:
Thank you.
Ferdousi Zaman:
Thank you, Nikal.
